First you have to hold on and remember
that you too are a part of the wind,
otherwise when you breathe
you’ll feel either startled or free
and forget to listen. And then like me
you might notice the person next to you
and disconnect from the rhythm
of a hundred horses making a trail.
You’ll fall into the familiar grasses
of gestures and glances and memory
or forget to move,
left in the wake of the herd.
Or you will move faster than is true,
body all jiggle and fruit and sugar lumps
with a head that nods the way
to two legs and fins and wings and none.
Your voice which always has something
new to share once again wonders
if it is brave enough to sound a singular vowel
until at last you do.
You leave nothing behind
and it tangerines the mind,
brings you to all fours so you can
slow search for the sound
that carries the tongue to the spleen
to your spine to every spine,
while the floor is nowhere
just as the field is everywhere,
and all that hums loosens you past the edge
to fingertip touch something new,
like to this vine
that was there for years to tangle you
into some form of not you, but that dies back,
then begins to sprawl with the next
sound’s stretch and your attention
now to flower morning glories to yield
to the roses of the day to the moonflowers
of the night to earth wire music
from the small coos of infants
to the oceans and back
so that your palms open
and your body spreads
and you breathe
from every cell.